Byron Bay is a small beach town on the far northern coast of New South Wales, right at the easternmost tip of the Australian mainland, and one of the most beloved destinations in the country. It started as a whaling station, then became a hippie retreat in the 1970s, and somehow managed to keep enough of that relaxed, alternative identity through decades of development to still feel unlike anywhere else on the east coast. The combination of sub-tropical climate, long white beaches, surf, and a lingering counterculture has made it both a rite of passage for young backpackers and a weekender's paradise for Sydney-siders — and, increasingly, a playground for celebrities and Instagram influencers who have bought up the hinterland.
The town itself is compact and walkable, with a handful of main streets lined with surf shops, health-food cafés, and the kind of bars that are open in bare feet. The real draws are outside the town: Main Beach and Clarkes Beach in the middle, Tallow Beach to the south for the bigger waves, and the Pass — where a rock platform creates one of the longest, gentlest right-hand point breaks in Australia — to the north-east. The walk up to Cape Byron Lighthouse at dawn is the classic Byron morning, and on clear days between June and November you can watch humpback whales breaching offshore during their annual migration. Dolphins are near-daily visitors year-round.
The hinterland behind Byron, rising into the caldera of an ancient volcano, is where the town's alternative soul lives on. Mullumbimby (sometimes called the most alternative town in Australia), Bangalow, and the village of Nimbin — Australia's cannabis capital, of a sort — are all worth a drive for the farmers' markets, yoga retreats, and the big-forest-and-waterfalls of Nightcap National Park. The Byron Bay Bluesfest, held every Easter, is one of the best music festivals in the country and brings genuinely huge international names to a farm outside town.
In the last decade Byron has been loved almost to death: real estate prices have gone interstellar, the streets are jammed in summer, and the hippie edges have been planed down. It is still worth going. Come in autumn or spring when the weather is good and the crowds are thinner, and stay up in the hinterland rather than in town if you want some quiet.